In the beginning, before Elska, I was just doing a lot of travel, meeting a lot of guys, and taking a lot of pictures. But no one really ever saw them. Over time, as more and more content built up, I felt a strong need to get them out there. But I didn't just want to upload them online, I wanted a physical product, something with real substance and weight. So I went shopping and discovered a zine called "Starrfucker" by Jeremy Lucido. I thought that this could be the model to base Elska on, and with that inspiration, I booked a trip to Lviv, Ukraine, and got to work.

(After the shoots in Ukraine however, I found it just impossible to limit Elska to the classic zine size of 60-ish pages, which is why Elska Lviv came to 140 pages. The latest issue by the way, is even bigger, 184 pages.)

Anyway, over the years, I've chatted to Jeremy a bit, but never met him. So when it came to fruition that we'd be shooting in his city, Los Angeles, I asked if he'd like to meet. But even better, he fancied taking part too. I thought, 'why not?' It's always fun to watch someone who's used to being on the other side of the camera wriggle with extreme discomfort from the front of the lens. And photographers often are the shyest of all. Jeremy was no exception here, although when we got to the nude shoots, he loosed up enormously. Perhaps he's just at his best when undressed... actually we've had quite a lot of mails and messages from readers about just how much they love his nudes. I'm not going to argue!

See more of Jeremy and read his story in Elska Los Angeles: bit.ly/elskala